Houston Chronicle drops a page of comics
Len-L
Good news, bad news on comics
November 08, 2007
If you're an avid reader of the Chronicle's comics pages, I have good
news and bad news.
The good news is that, Monday through Saturday, one page of comics
will be printed in color.
The bad news is that, Monday through Saturday, the number of pages
devoted to comics will be reduced by one.
The Sunday comics pages will not be reduced. There will be one slight
change. Sherman's Lagoon will be added to the lineup, replacing My
Cage.
The comic strips that are being dropped can still be found online at
chron.com/comics. You can even build your own comics page by using
tools available at that site.
Why is the paper doing this? It's a cost-cutting measure. The
Chronicle has run more comics than other newspapers for years, but
syndication fees and increases in the cost of newsprint make these
changes necessary. The decision was made only after other serious
cost-cutting measures were implemented at the paper.
A considerable amount of thought went into deciding which strips would
be dropped and which would remain. Some of the comics ranked poorly in
a recent survey of readers. Some were new comics that had not yet
developed a following. Some of the older comics that were dropped were
no longer being produced by the original author.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Len-L <l...@davlin.net> wrote:
> Good news, bad news on comics
>
> November 08, 2007
>
> If you're an avid reader of the Chronicle's comics pages, I have good
> news and bad news.
>
> The good news is that, Monday through Saturday, one page of comics
> will be printed in color.
>
> The bad news is that, Monday through Saturday, the number of pages
> devoted to comics will be reduced by one.
So, by "good news and bad news," they meant, "bad news and worse
news."
What on earth makes these morons think that unreadably small comics
will be *improved* by filling them in with poorly-chosen colors?
And what comics will be dropped from the print edition?
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blinky the Wonder Wombat
wrote:
> In the previous article, Len-L <l...@davlin.net> wrote:
>
> > Good news, bad news on comics
>
> > November 08, 2007
>
> > If you're an avid reader of the Chronicle's comics pages, I have good
> > news and bad news.
>
> > The good news is that, Monday through Saturday, one page of comics
> > will be printed in color.
>
> > The bad news is that, Monday through Saturday, the number of pages
> > devoted to comics will be reduced by one.
>
> So, by "good news and bad news," they meant, "bad news and worse
> news."
>
> What on earth makes these morons think that unreadably small comics
> will be *improved* by filling them in with poorly-chosen colors?
>
> And what comics will be dropped from the print edition?
> --
Sounds like some zombie strips will be dropped- that is good news.
Sounds like some new strips that haven't gain traction yet will be
dropped- that is bad news.
I'm also curious as to which strips didn't make the cut.
Peter B. Steiger
> (reprinted from the Chronicle website)
Ugh, more evidence of the decline of the dead-tree news biz. I miss the Houston Post of the Hobby empire...
--
Peter B. Steiger
Cheyenne, WY
If you must reply by email, you can reach me by placing zeroes where
you see stars: wypbs.**1 at gmail.com (yes, that's a new address)
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Len-L
<wkharri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Sounds like some zombie strips will be dropped- that is good news.
>
>Sounds like some new strips that haven't gain traction yet will be
>dropped- that is bad news.
>
>I'm also curious as to which strips didn't make the cut.
Cut:
Arctic Circle
Buckles
Cathy
Cleats
Crock
Dennis the Menace
Diesel Sweeties
Dinette Set
Drabble
Gasoline Alley
Heathcliff
Judge Parker
Lockhorns
Marmaduke
Mary Worth
Mr Boffo
My Cage
Real Life Adventures
Rubes
Shoe
Spot the Frog
Sylvia
Wizard of Id
Paige
> On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:54:14 -0800, Blinky the Wonder Wombat
>
YOIKS! Not Mary Worth! The "Dear Abby" of the comic strip universe...
They'll regret it when Aldo's twin brother shows up at Charterstone to
seek vengeance.
Paige
aemeijers
> (reprinted from the Chronicle website)
>
> Good news, bad news on comics
>
> November 08, 2007
>
> If you're an avid reader of the Chronicle's comics pages, I have good
> news and bad news.
>
> The good news is that, Monday through Saturday, one page of comics
> will be printed in color.
>
> The bad news is that, Monday through Saturday, the number of pages
> devoted to comics will be reduced by one.
in Lake Charles every year- walking the two blocks to the stop'n'rob at
dawn, and getting a fresh hardcopy Chron to read with breakfast,
starting of course with the 4 full pages of comics.(No broadband there,
so reading them online is painfully slow.)
aem sends...
Dave Van Domelen
Len-L <l...@davlin.net> wrote:
>The comic strips that are being dropped can still be found online at
>chron.com/comics. You can even build your own comics page by using
>tools available at that site.
Is there any way to save your page? I tried registering, but I still
had to build the page from scratch each time...it's really not worth the
bother using the "build a page" thing for the half dozen strips I might want
to read there (i.e. strips where I don't mind missing the Sunday strip) if I
have to go through clicking on each title every time.
Dave Van Domelen, right now finds the PI more convenient, and they have
Sundays, so he's only using HC for Fasttrack and nights he can stay up late
enough that the timezones work in his favor.
George Peatty
If I lived in Houston, I'd miss Dennis the Menace and Wizard of Id. The
rest, not so much.
George Peatty
Domelen) wrote:
> Is there any way to save your page?
Set a bookmark. Ctrl-D
Default User
> In article <jqq6j3d83vonmuvgs...@4ax.com>,
> Len-L <l...@davlin.net> wrote:
> > The comic strips that are being dropped can still be found online at
> > chron.com/comics. You can even build your own comics page by using
> > tools available at that site.
>
> Is there any way to save your page?
Bookmark it. All the information is in the URL.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Dave Van Domelen
So, that insanely long URL is actually stable and not date-dependent
like all the individual strip URLs are? Whaddyaknow. Too bad they can't
actually make logging in worth something.
Dave Van Domelen, would just as soon bookmark Fasttrack alone, but the
URL is date-based.
Mark Jackson
Wizard of Id and Cleats: some. Mr. Boffo, quite a bit. Otherwise I'd
only miss Sylvia. Yes, I know it's often tiresome these days, but then
there's today's (which I suspect at least some of the other nit-pickers
here will appreciate):
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2007/11/8&name=Sylvia
--
Mark Jackson - http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~mjackson
Like many people, I started blogging out of
an urgent need to procrastinate. - Alex Ross
Mark Jackson
> In article <c5b7j3puivtpmb86g...@4ax.com>,
> George Peatty <peattyg...@copper.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 16:26:21 -0800 (PST), dva...@haven.eyrie.org (Dave Van
>> Domelen) wrote:
>>
>>> Is there any way to save your page?
>> Set a bookmark. Ctrl-D
>
> So, that insanely long URL is actually stable and not date-dependent
> like all the individual strip URLs are?
As lovingly detailed in the FAQ, yes.
> Whaddyaknow. Too bad they can't
> actually make logging in worth something.
>
> Dave Van Domelen, would just as soon bookmark Fasttrack alone, but the
> URL is date-based.
(Psst! Should I tell Dave that
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?name=Fast_Track
defaults to the current date, or should we keep it from him a while longer?)
Sherwood Harrington
comics page at the Houston Chronicle:
> So, that insanely long URL is actually stable and not date-dependent
> like all the individual strip URLs are? Whaddyaknow.
It's got a funny glitch (or feature), though. If you keep the same
bookmark for a while, as they drop strips or they otherwise go away,
you'll wind up with whatever strip is first alphabetically popping into
their slots. Right now, my custom page has three appearances of 9CWL: one
for its own sake, and one each where Foxtrot and The Big Picture used to
be.
--
Sherwood Harrington
Boulder Creek, California
Mark Jackson
> Dave Van Domelen <dva...@haven.eyrie.org> wrote re bookmarking a custom
> comics page at the Houston Chronicle:
>
>> So, that insanely long URL is actually stable and not date-dependent
>> like all the individual strip URLs are? Whaddyaknow.
>
> It's got a funny glitch (or feature), though. If you keep the same
> bookmark for a while, as they drop strips or they otherwise go away,
> you'll wind up with whatever strip is first alphabetically
Lexicographically. "9" isn't a member of the alphabet.
> popping into
> their slots. Right now, my custom page has three appearances of 9CWL: one
> for its own sake, and one each where Foxtrot and The Big Picture used to
> be.
You *can* remove those stale entries from the bookmarked URL, y'know.
Sherwood Harrington
> Sherwood Harrington wrote:
>> Dave Van Domelen <dva...@haven.eyrie.org> wrote re bookmarking a custom
>> comics page at the Houston Chronicle:
>>
>>> So, that insanely long URL is actually stable and not date-dependent
>>> like all the individual strip URLs are? Whaddyaknow.
>>
>> It's got a funny glitch (or feature), though. If you keep the same
>> bookmark for a while, as they drop strips or they otherwise go away,
>> you'll wind up with whatever strip is first alphabetically
> Lexicographically. "9" isn't a member of the alphabet.
Yeah, sloppy wording on my part. I should have said "whatever strip is
first alphabetically unless a strip or strips begins with a number, in
which case it would be whatever strip starts with the smallest number."
Or not.
>> popping into
>> their slots. Right now, my custom page has three appearances of 9CWL: one
>> for its own sake, and one each where Foxtrot and The Big Picture used to
>> be.
> You *can* remove those stale entries from the bookmarked URL, y'know.
Actually, I kind of like them.
David Armour
> Len-L wrote:
>> (reprinted from the Chronicle website)
>>
>> Good news, bad news on comics
>>
>> November 08, 2007
>>
>> If you're an avid reader of the Chronicle's comics pages, I have good
>> news and bad news.
>>
>> The good news is that, Monday through Saturday, one page of comics
>> will be printed in color.
>>
>> The bad news is that, Monday through Saturday, the number of pages
>> devoted to comics will be reduced by one.
> Dang. That was one of my favorite parts of visiting my other house down
> in Lake Charles every year- walking the two blocks to the stop'n'rob at
<rimshot!> made you say 'stop'n'rob'!
You have a(n other) house in Lake Charles? Doesn't the
condensation get to you?
<jealous>
I really shouldn't do this when I've had wine with dinner...
<worried>
Mark Jackson
> Mark Jackson <mjac...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>> Sherwood Harrington wrote:
>>> Dave Van Domelen <dva...@haven.eyrie.org> wrote re bookmarking a custom
>>> comics page at the Houston Chronicle:
>>>
>>>> So, that insanely long URL is actually stable and not date-dependent
>>>> like all the individual strip URLs are? Whaddyaknow.
>>> It's got a funny glitch (or feature), though. If you keep the same
>>> bookmark for a while, as they drop strips or they otherwise go away,
>>> you'll wind up with whatever strip is first alphabetically
>
>> Lexicographically. "9" isn't a member of the alphabet.
>
> Yeah, sloppy wording on my part. I should have said "whatever strip is
> first alphabetically unless a strip or strips begins with a number, in
> which case it would be whatever strip starts with the smallest number."
> Or not.
Why do you hate special characters?
George Peatty
Domelen) wrote:
> Dave Van Domelen, would just as soon bookmark Fasttrack alone, but the
>URL is date-based.
Well, the answer there is to build a custom page with just Fasttrack on it,
then bookmark that ..
Sherwood Harrington
> Sherwood Harrington wrote:
>> Mark Jackson <mjac...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>>> Sherwood Harrington wrote:
>>>> Dave Van Domelen <dva...@haven.eyrie.org> wrote re bookmarking a custom
>>>> comics page at the Houston Chronicle:
>>>>
>>>>> So, that insanely long URL is actually stable and not date-dependent
>>>>> like all the individual strip URLs are? Whaddyaknow.
>>>> It's got a funny glitch (or feature), though. If you keep the same
>>>> bookmark for a while, as they drop strips or they otherwise go away,
>>>> you'll wind up with whatever strip is first alphabetically
>>
>>> Lexicographically. "9" isn't a member of the alphabet.
>>
>> Yeah, sloppy wording on my part. I should have said "whatever strip is
>> first alphabetically unless a strip or strips begins with a number, in
>> which case it would be whatever strip starts with the smallest number."
>> Or not.
> Why do you hate special characters?
I'm pretty fond of Thorax.
Dave Garrett
aeme...@att.net says...
> Dang. That was one of my favorite parts of visiting my other house down
> in Lake Charles every year- walking the two blocks to the stop'n'rob at
> dawn, and getting a fresh hardcopy Chron to read with breakfast,
> starting of course with the 4 full pages of comics.(No broadband there,
> so reading them online is painfully slow.)
I sit in front of a computer more than enough as it is, and am
considerably less than thrilled that I'll now have to read quite a few
more strips online than I'd previously had to. A key component of
breakfast is reading an actual newspaper, especially the comics, as God
and Winsor McCay intended.
Dave, really pissed they dropped Gasoline Alley from the print edition
J.D. Baldwin
Really, all those put together don't add up to much of a loss. "Spot
the Frog" is cute and amusing, and Boffo is one of the greats, but most
of those suck out loud, and the ones that don't are fairly indifferent.
Blinky the Wonder Wombat
"Len-L" <l...@davlin.net> wrote in message
news:9947j3te5f1b52ita...@4ax.com...
Thanks!
By my count, that's four zombie strips (Dennis the Menace, Lockhorns, Shoe,
and Wizard of Id), or seven if you count the serial strips Mary Worth,
Gasoline Alley, and Judge Parker.
Jym Dyer
| of comics will be printed in color.
=v= Translation: "Our parent company also runs a company
that's hired a bunch of near-primates in Florida to throw
ink onto comic strips. We hope you enjoy seeing baby blue
buckskin jackets and people whose hair is only the correct
color on weekends."
=v= William Randolph Hearst is rolling in his grave. No,
seriously; they thought it was Cupertino but it was really
in Colma:
http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/latest.htm
<_Jym_>
Len-L
The really irritating thing is that Mr Boffo is not on the Chronicle's
internet site.
Ted Nolan
Why do you say that? Are you looking under 'M' or 'B'?
Ted
Mark Jackson
"That's 'Boffo, Mister' to *you*!"
(AFAIK however there's no source of Sundays other than the raw directory
listing on mrboffo.com.)
Dann
@reader1.panix.com.
> In the previous article, Len-L <l...@davlin.net> wrote:
>> Good news, bad news on comics
>>
>> November 08, 2007
>>
>> If you're an avid reader of the Chronicle's comics pages, I have good
>> news and bad news.
>>
>> The good news is that, Monday through Saturday, one page of comics
>> will be printed in color.
>>
>> The bad news is that, Monday through Saturday, the number of pages
>> devoted to comics will be reduced by one.
>
> So, by "good news and bad news," they meant, "bad news and worse
> news."
>
> What on earth makes these morons think that unreadably small comics
> will be *improved* by filling them in with poorly-chosen colors?
Not that I think that the current postage stamp size is ideal, but the
local switch to color did improve my comics reading experience.
I'd rather have two pages in black and white than one in color, but since
that option wasn't on the table, I suspect that Houston area readers will
at least have a better experience with the one page that they still have.
--
Regards,
Dann
blogging at http://web.newsguy.com/dainbramage/blog.htm
Freedom works; each and every time it is tried.
J.D. Baldwin
> Chronicle's internet site.
You scared the hell out of me. Boffo is there -- just drop
the "Mr" to find it.
ronniecat
on Thu, 8 Nov 2007 20:10:06 +0000 (UTC),
INVALID...@example.com.invalid (J.D. Baldwin) wrote:
>So, by "good news and bad news," they meant, "bad news and worse
>news."
>
>What on earth makes these morons think that unreadably small comics
>will be *improved* by filling them in with poorly-chosen colors?
I blame the kids with their short attention spans and their zoot suits
and their crack cocaine.
Seriously, there seems to be a blind faith that "more" = "better".
Have you been to a website for any major motion picture or for a
big-name band lately? It's like you have to shovel your way in through
the bells and whistles and animations and java and flash and flyouts
and...
Comics? Good! Colour comics? Better! Must be!
Just be glad the papers haven't figured out a way to animate them yet.
ronnie
--
"The very deaf, as I am, hear the most astounding things all
round them, which have not, in fact, been said." - Henry Green
* remove mycollar to reply *
* http://www.hearingloss.blogspot.com *
Blinky the Wonder Wombat
> Using a combination of the written word, ASL and interpretative dance,
> on Thu, 8 Nov 2007 20:10:06 +0000 (UTC),
>
> >So, by "good news and bad news," they meant, "bad news and worse
> >news."
>
> >What on earth makes these morons think that unreadably small comics
> >will be *improved* by filling them in with poorly-chosen colors?
>
> I blame the kids with their short attention spans and their zoot suits
> and their crack cocaine.
>
> Seriously, there seems to be a blind faith that "more" = "better".
>
> Have you been to a website for any major motion picture or for a
> big-name band lately? It's like you have to shovel your way in through
> the bells and whistles and animations and java and flash and flyouts
> and...
>
> Comics? Good! Colour comics? Better! Must be!
>
> Just be glad the papers haven't figured out a way to animate them yet.
>
Let's pray that they never do. I idea of Merry-diff and Wobin
blinking at me over my morning coffee is unnerving.
Len-L
Oh, I was looking at the build your own comic page, not the whole list.
Len-L
Rob Wynne
> You have a(n other) house in Lake Charles? Doesn't the
> condensation get to you?
>
Lake Charles, Louisiana?
Little Bessie, girl I once knew, told me just to drop on by if there's
anything she could do.
Good times.
--
Rob Wynne / The Autographed Cat / d...@america.net
http://www.autographedcat.com/ / http://autographedcat.livejournal.com/
Gafilk 2008: Jan 11-13, 2008 - Atlanta, GA - http://www.gafilk.org/
Aphelion - Original SF&F since 1997 - http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/
Rob Wynne
> Dave Van Domelen wrote:
>
>> In article <jqq6j3d83vonmuvgs...@4ax.com>,
>> Len-L <l...@davlin.net> wrote:
>> > The comic strips that are being dropped can still be found online at
>> > chron.com/comics. You can even build your own comics page by using
>> > tools available at that site.
>>
>> Is there any way to save your page?
>
> Bookmark it. All the information is in the URL.
The really annoying thing, to me, is if I want to *add* something, I
can't (it seems) bring up the page I've already got in the config screen
-- I have to add all the checkmarks again.
Jym Dyer
> that's hired a bunch of near-primates in Florida to throw
> ink onto comic strips. We hope you enjoy seeing baby blue
> buckskin jackets and people whose hair is only the correct
> color on weekends."
=v= Right on cue:
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20071109&name=Sally_Forth
Sally's mom is right there *saying* her hair color.
<_Jym_>
Steve Grant
>=v= Right on cue:
>
>http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20071109&name=Sally_Forth
>
>Sally's mom is right there *saying* her hair color.
> <_Jym_>
Maybe Sally's mom was blonde back in the day, but is no longer? I'm
willing to go along with the colorist's decision here.
Default User
> Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Bookmark it. All the information is in the URL.
>
> The really annoying thing, to me, is if I want to add something, I
> can't (it seems) bring up the page I've already got in the config
> screen -- I have to add all the checkmarks again.
Here's what you can do. Make a page with just the new ones you want.
Cut out JUST the entries for the comics (the parts that look like
&c=104 or whatever), and edit the URL in your bookmarks.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Default User
> On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:26:42 -0800, Jym Dyer <j...@econet.org> wrote:
> > Sally's mom is right there saying her hair color.
> Maybe Sally's mom was blonde back in the day, but is no longer? I'm
> willing to go along with the colorist's decision here.
Or, one could go with the real colorist on Sunday:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/comics/king.htm?name=Sally_F
orth&date=20071021>
Mark Jackson
It's there also, as Boffo.
Rob Wynne
> Rob Wynne wrote:
>
>> Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> > Bookmark it. All the information is in the URL.
>>
>> The really annoying thing, to me, is if I want to add something, I
>> can't (it seems) bring up the page I've already got in the config
>> screen -- I have to add all the checkmarks again.
>
> Here's what you can do. Make a page with just the new ones you want.
> Cut out JUST the entries for the comics (the parts that look like
> &c=104 or whatever), and edit the URL in your bookmarks.
>
That'll work. But I shouldn't *have* to do it that way. :)
Jym Dyer
> no longer? I'm willing to go along with the colorist's
> decision here.
=v= Well, it's nice that you can be so trusting of lower-order
simians, but note the part where I wrote, "people whose hair
is only the correct color on weekends." Like Sally's mom last
Sunday, for example:
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20071028&name=Sally_Forth
Or the Sunday before that, for example:
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20071021&name=Sally_Forth
=v= Since the dawn of time, Sunday strips have used the
canonical colors, provided by the strip's creators. My
lament is that the colorizers at Reed Brennan apparently
don't think that paying attention to such things is part
of their job.
=v= See also my previous complaints about a freckled woman
named "Rusty" appearing with blonde hair, transgendered
mallards, and the baby-blue buckskin jacket in the current
_Mark_Trail_ story arc.
<_Jym_>
aemeijers
involved a dead cow, however.) But it did stay the same color from day
to day....
aem sends....
racs...@gmail.com
>
> Well, I've actually SEEN a Baby Blue Buckskin jacket, IRL. (Not sure it
> involved a dead cow, however.) But it did stay the same color from day
> to day....
It wouldn't have where I grew up.
Unless it was being worn by a girl.
Mike Peterson
Lost Forest, ME
aemeijers
aem sends....
Jym Dyer
Someone dredged up a past daily with the right hair color:
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20071013&name=Sally_Forth
<_Jym_>
D. D. Degg
> =v= Josh comments on the greying of Sally Forth's mom:
> http://joshreads.com/?p=1326
The coloring on Marvin's hair (two strips down on the linked
page) is another argument against coloring dailies.
D.D.Degg
Veronique
It is Mark Trail, I think, that suffers worst from Daily Colorist
Ignorance. Not just the resolute female-mallard-colored-as-male, but
in the current story arc, coloring a buckskin jacket light blue (with
matching hat!) is just bizarre.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/comics/king.html?name=Mark_Trail&date=20071107
Well, it IS Mark Trail, after all, and colorist or no, the story would
still be oddly stilted and men with facial hair would still be evil,
but it wouldn't be quite so outlandishly, uh, outlandish if at least
the colors matched what the artist drew.
V.
--
Veronique Chez Sheep